Can Pet Shelters Offer New Clues to Prevent Suicide?

Health officials in New York are beginning to collect data about suicide cases in hopes of preventing further deaths. The program — which is being piloted in Suffolk, Westchester and two other counties upstate — is modeled after efforts in Washington County, Ore.

That county has been performing "death investigations" for several years. Maureen O'Hagan, a journalist who's written about Oregon's efforts for Kaiser Health News, says they revealed surprising patterns about what people do in the days leading up to suicide — for example, dropping off pets at animal shelters and visiting doctors — and in turn, new opportunities to train people to intervene. 

She says the approach can be translated to other places, like New York. 

"Any jurisdiction can collect this sort of data, it's not really that complicated to do," O'Hagan said. "But each jurisdiction is going to have to analyze that data themselves, because what's true for one place is not necessarily true for other places throughout the country." 

Listen to the full conversation above.